Glycidyl ethers are important as intermediates for synthesizing a variety of medicines, and especially optically active glycidyl ethers have been recently utilized in development of the medicines.
It is generally required that optically active medicines or intermediates thereof are more than 98% in purity. Therefore, it is important problem to establish the process for preparing optically active glycidyl ethers in high purity.
As a general method for preparing racemic glycidyl ethers which are used for preparing a monomer of epoxide resin, the method which comprises reacting a mole of phenol with 3 to 7 moles of epichlorohydrin in an aqueous sodium hydroxide solution for several hours at 45 to 90° C. has been developed.
Furthermore, it is disclosed that an optically active glycidyl ether, which is an intermediate for preparing atenolol, represented by the following formula;
was prepared by reacting 4-carbamoylmethylphenol with an optically active epichlorohydrin in the presence of an alkali hydroxide and a quaternary ammonium salt in an aqueous solvent (Japanese Patent Publication B 6-37482).
However, the yield of glycidyl ethers and the optical purity of optically active compounds thereof were not satisfactory.